


Don't Know What's Out There (Could Be Wolves)

by CombatBootsandDreams



Series: Glow in the dark [17]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort, Friendship, Late Night Conversations, No beta we kayak like Tim, Pre Gerard Keay/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29611896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CombatBootsandDreams/pseuds/CombatBootsandDreams
Summary: Getting to know someone can be awkward. Getting to know someone that you'll be living with for the foreseeable future and came back to life with? Well, that can be even more awkward.Or: After the graveyard Jon and Gerry talk.
Series: Glow in the dark [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924183
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	Don't Know What's Out There (Could Be Wolves)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back, not sure how much this story is going to get updated, I have a ton of things to get done but I'm going to make an effort. I found this already done and sitting on my laptop for several months so sorry about that. This takes place right after Songbird Vs Rattlesnake but before Variation on a Theme. Wild Blue Yonder by The Amazing Devil for the title.

Gerry stayed up the rest of that Friday night with Jon. Sometimes quizzing him on what had changed since he’d been dead and sometimes just listening to the traffic outside the London flat.

He’s tired, but Gerry’s been tired since his dad died. Has been tired since his life turned into one hellish game of monsters, and hunters, and Leitner’s, and fear gods.

Jon says he can’t sleep though and there’s no way Gerry’s leaving him alone after what they’ve just been through. Jon’s making lists and writing notes and trying not to have a panic attack from his spot on the floor. Gerry offered a spot on the couch because well, it was Jon’s couch, but the man seems more comfortable on the cold hardwood floor. Able to pace around the tiny living room at his own pleasure.

The news played quietly in the background as the bright colors of the tv screen flickered over Jon and colored the silver streaks in his hair every color of the rainbow.

Gerry would have thought he’d be better at waiting after all that time in the skin book but if he was being honest with himself? He was just as impatient as he ever was.

All his life there had been something that needed doing. Collecting Leitner’s for his mum or trying to understand his studies. Later it was stopping rituals with Gertrude. The only downtime he had was when he was too injured to move and even then he had never taken it well.

Jon seemed to be similar in that respect at least. He was looking over his papers and frantically buzzing around like the events of the last 48 hours hadn’t happened. He had an energy Gertrude never had, or maybe she had just lost before they’d met. Jon looked ready to cry and crawl out of his skin, and maybe punch someone all at the same time.

It was alarming, to say the least.

“Okay, stop. You are about collapse, _again_. So, sit down and run me through one of your lists.” He says, just harsh enough to make Jon listen.

Then Jon seizes up and yeah, he probably should have expected that. His hands shake but to Jon’s credit, he does sit.

Against the wall with his files pressed against his chest like they contained national secrets, but still, sitting.

“I don’t know. I mean what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, but I know you have to have something rattling around in there. Even if you think it's stupid, just tell me.”

“Ok, I don’t think Elias knew that whatever he did would bring you back. I also know he wasn’t trying to kill me. I mean he was, but he somehow knew it was only going to be temporary.”

“Ok, was there anyone else with you guys?”

“No, why?”

“You were trying to say something. When I asked you who had stabbed you. You tried to say Elias’s name sure, but that you tried to say something else. Something about Jo? I thought maybe you were trying to say your own name but then you switched to saying something about the watch or the watcher. Are you sure it was just you two?” He asks as casually as you can ask ‘hey do you remember there being another person in the graveyard while you were being stabbed to death and left to bleed out?’

“I’m sure, even then I don’t know a Jo. Or anyone’s name that makes sense. I don’t even remember saying that.”

“Considering how much blood you had just lost I was surprised you could say anything.”

“Well, I can’t say I recommend getting stabbed, again.” Jon mutters rubbing at his right shoulder.

Gerry lets out a snort that makes Jon look up with an incredibly offended look on his face. Which just makes him laugh harder.

“How did you get stabbed the first time?” He asks through the last of his heavy breathing.

“Michael. Stabbed me in the shoulder for yelling at him about how he shouldn’t eat real estate agents.”

“Michael is?”

“Oh! The Distortion? He’s an avatar of The Spiral so be on the lookout for bright yellow doors. I think he and Gertrude had a history—never mind they definitely knew each other, he was an assistant Gertrude tossed to The Spiral trying to stop a ritual.” Jon says shaking his head.

“Noted, nice to know I’m, not the only assistant she experimented on.” Gerry says bitterly.

“You know I don’t do that right? I’d never.” And Jon says it in such an end all be all tone that Gerry actually does believe.

“How many assistants do you have?”

“Four, I would have had five but, I.” He stammers and closes his eyes.

“You lost one.” No need to frame it as a question because Gerry’s seen what loss looks like. Has seen when someone _knows_ the person they cared for was gone but that gap in your heart still stung when you thought about them.

“Yeah, she, it wasn’t—she just made a wrong turn. It was just an accident in a crisis and she made one bad decision but—”

“In this line of work that’s enough.”

“Yeah, I should have protected her. Should have saved her, Sasha didn’t deserve that— _no one_ deserves that, but especially not Sasha.”

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?” Jon looks like he very much minds him asking but also like he’s wanted someone to for a long time.

“There were worms, Jane Prentiss, an avatar The Corruption. We were rather lucky we found them when we did actually. There were a lot of worms when we collapsed that shelf and if we hadn’t found them when we did I don’t think any of us would still be alive.”

“I’m sorry, worms?”

“Fast-moving, flesh-eating worms. They were classified as an unidentified parasite, but that was just official talk.”

“That’s what happened to…”

“My face and hands and legs yes. Not a fun day.”

“And they were in the institute walls?”

“Yes, how they got there is a long story that we can cover another time, but they came out in droves. I took—I took Sasha and Martin and we barricaded ourselves in a room in the archives. Back then it was just us and Tim, who was one break and when he came back he didn’t notice the worms. Sasha ran out to save him and I never saw the real Sasha again. Best I can figure she saved Tim, escaped the Archives. Then pulled the fire alarm, managed to meet up with Elias but they got separated and that’s when. That’s when she went into Artifact Storage, she hated artifact storage, and I know she wouldn’t have gone in there if she had thought she had another option but, I still wonder what would have happened that day if she hadn’t gone in there. Maybe she would still be alive.”

“What happened?”

“There was a table, that contained a creature of The Stranger and it—it replaced her. Messed with our memories and every digital photo of her. We didn’t even know she was gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“Is that why you said all your assistants hate you?”

“No, that was the same time we found Gertrude’s body, which had been shot three times in the chest. So, I wasn’t doing great. I stalked Tim and Martin, my assistants, accused them of murder and, it wasn’t a great time for any of us. Then when we found out none of us could quit and that I’m becoming or that I’m a monster, and it was just too much, for Tim at least. Martin seems ok with me still. Basira and Melanie signed the contracts themselves I wasn’t even there, but Melanie still hates me for it and I can’t say that I blame her. I’m stuck, no allies, no hope, there aren’t any rituals going on but that’s only so much of a comfort, and I just.”

Jon closes down at that, tears streaming down his face. He was a quiet crier, practically silent, and as his shoulders hitch Gerry wonders how much practice he’s has had at that.

“You need help.”

“I think I might. I haven’t asked for help in a long time.”

“Yeah, me either, and look where that got us.”

“What you said in the graveyard, that’s still on the table, right? That we could be friends?” Jon asked quietly, unsure and small, and still adverting eye contact.

“Of course, I don’t make false promises.”

“I should probably warn you I’ve been told I’m not easy to get along with.” Jon comments, voice far more steady than it had been.

“We just came back to life together, I’m fairly sure that bonds people together, I can handle it.”

“Yes, I suppose after that the fact that I wake up at 5 in the morning every day isn’t that big of a deal.”

“You’re stuck with me, now get up on the couch and tell me what happened to Gertrude because there has to be a story behind her getting shot three times in the chest.”

“So I think she was going to try and destroy the Archives.”

“You’re _kidding!”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for sticking around till the end.


End file.
